


Artwork for The Secret of Flight

by skyblue_reverie



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Art, M/M, mcshep big bang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 18:54:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25940182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyblue_reverie/pseuds/skyblue_reverie
Summary: HUUUUUUUUGE thanks to the incredibly lovely and talented Ivorysilk, who dragged me into the fandom (and now I won't let her out again) and persuaded me to sign up for the McShep Big Bang and wrote a story that is so beautiful and was such a joy to create artwork for.All images were made using canva.com, just a basic free account.  It's super easy to use and a lot of fun.All stock photos are free open source either from canva.com or from pixabay.com.For fandom photos I tried to use only ones that were obviously official publicity shots or screencaps that I made myself or that were from "open" sources (like fandom wikis).That said, if you see anything that's yours or copyrighted, please let me know and I will fix!ETA: Now with bonus, utterly self-indulgent "DVD Commentary" that absolutely nobody asked for!  Adding it a bit at a time as I write it up.
Relationships: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Comments: 18
Kudos: 36
Collections: McShep Big Bang 2020





	Artwork for The Secret of Flight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ivorysilk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivorysilk/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Secret of Flight](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25948399) by [Ivorysilk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivorysilk/pseuds/Ivorysilk), [skyblue_reverie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyblue_reverie/pseuds/skyblue_reverie). 



> HUUUUUUUUGE thanks to the incredibly lovely and talented Ivorysilk, who dragged me into the fandom (and now I won't let her out again) and persuaded me to sign up for the McShep Big Bang and wrote a story that is so beautiful and was such a joy to create artwork for.
> 
> All images were made using canva.com, just a basic free account. It's super easy to use and a lot of fun.  
> All stock photos are free open source either from canva.com or from pixabay.com.  
> For fandom photos I tried to use only ones that were obviously official publicity shots or screencaps that I made myself or that were from "open" sources (like fandom wikis).  
> That said, if you see anything that's yours or copyrighted, please let me know and I will fix!
> 
> ETA: Now with bonus, utterly self-indulgent "DVD Commentary" that absolutely nobody asked for! Adding it a bit at a time as I write it up.  
> 

  
Cover

  
[ ](https://imgbox.com/Pg3uerb7)

  
So this was one of three compositions that I put together as candidates for cover art, and then I asked Ivorysilk to choose her favorite. One of the other cover art candidates ultimately got used for the Chapter 6 art, but the other one ended up not being used at all. Ah well. All of the cover art that I mocked up was black and white, to go with the stark nature of the story. And plus, Ivorysilk and I like black and white on an aesthetic level. Well, okay, it’s not completely black and white, because the top image, the wings, is actually a color image. The original image is warmer, with creamy yellow tones to the wings (more like ivory, but a warm white rather than a cool one) but I used a filter from canva called “Nordic” which washes out a lot of the color, especially any warm tones like yellow, leaving this image almost black and white but not quite, and with a much cooler white tone. I considered making it totally black and white but it pops more this way. I wanted to use wings as an image but did not want to do a manip where I pasted wings on a photo of John because a) I’m not that skilled and b) I feared it would look cheesy. So I just went with the wings by themselves, and I think it works better than a manip would have.

For the images below the wings, I deliberately chose one of John getting ready to be whumped (he looks more vulnerable with bare shoulders, and he has that look of mild concern/annoyance that he gets when he’s about to be tortured, that on a normal human being would be total panic, but John’s too cool for that). I chose one of Rodney looking concerned because he always worries about John when John’s in danger, and played with the contrast, brightness and saturation quite a lot on that image to get it to match the light/dark balance of the one of John (originally the one of Rodney was much lighter than the one of John). The one in the middle is of them together but looking at the camera rather than each other, which I liked because the fic has a sort of “us against the world” feel. That middle pic is deliberately repeated in the end title card, but this time in full color because it’s still them against the world but the coloration gives it a more hopeful, happy feel.

I wanted to use only one font for all of the pieces, to keep them all consistent aesthetically (I cheated a bit on the end title card with the handwriting font at the bottom though). The font I ultimately chose is called Montserrat Classic and I really like it for its starkness (that word will come up a lot in this commentary) and simplicity (being both sans serif and all caps). Another advantage of it being all caps was that that way each line was consistent, heightwise; there weren’t trailing letters like g that go below the line and mess up the spacing between lines (aka “leading” – when you use mixed case, you can’t have the two lines too close together because otherwise the g will land on the letters of the line below, but I don’t like the way it looks on artwork when you have to space out the lines to avoid that.) I also liked the wide kerning (spaces between the letters) of the font as it gave a feeling of both spaciousness and expansiveness (suggesting flight) but also distance and loneliness and isolation, one of the emotional themes of the story.

  
Chapter 1

  
[ ](https://imgbox.com/I01cEyId)

Ivorysilk chose the quote for each chapter and then I made the artwork to go with both the quote and the feel of the chapter, so it would all harmonize. On Chapter 1, John’s background, it starts off happy (though poor John’s childhood quickly takes a nosedive, no pun intended) so Ivorysilk wanted sort of a peaceful, calm-before-the-storm feel, and of course a dove is appropriate to the quote. I initially used a different dove image but then realized a) it wasn’t open source, oops, and b) it was low res and looked awful blown up. So I found the new dove on pixabay.com (I love that site) and ended up liking it even more than the original image. The filter I used on the dove image was Epic, which washes out the background (originally the sky was a much more vivid blue) and gives the foreground a yellowed look, with the overall feeling of the filter being that of an old yellowed photograph, which captured the feel of the chapter, John’s backstory and his few moments of peace in childhood before it all went to hell.

Chapter 2

  
[ ](https://imgbox.com/Hwix80zv)

I feel bad taking credit for this one and the next because they were compositions that were already there as templates on canva.com and I just changed the lettering. But this one was so perfect with its feeling of flight but also loneliness and isolation, and the black and white fit with the somber mood of the chapter. I also liked the mist overhead, because the bird is heading off into the unknown and it’s sort of murky and uneasy-making. Not a happy image, though a beautiful one. A note on the words on each image: Ivorysilk picked the quotes (though I made a suggestion or two) but I picked which words from the quote to use for each image, according to my own literary and artistic fancy. :D She then paid me the incredible compliment of using those words as the title for the chapters (except Ch 4 and 10 because I used too many words to be a reasonable chapter title) and I am so grateful and happy she did that!

Chapter 3

  
[ ](https://imgbox.com/HbMgrpEV)

Another template from canva, and again, it’s beautiful but not happy. Although “open road” stock photos are often used to illustrate a sense of adventure and freedom and possibility, these ones are bare and stark and lonely, and with the all black and white, especially somber. To me they give the feeling of John being on the run, all alone, with no end in sight. A note on word placement on the chapter images: With one exception (Ch 10) I always made a solid dark background for the words "Chapter [Number]". I figured that announcing the chapter number was the raison d'etre for the piece of art, so that needed to be clear and stand out and immediately draw the eye. (As an aside, I liked the aesthetics of spelling out each number rather than using the digit to represent it, which is why I did that.) However, where possible, I put the words from the quote onto the image itself rather than a solid text block. In some cases that wasn't possible/practicable without messing up the image or making the words unreadable, or it just worked aesthetically better to have them on the block. In this particular image, it was difficult to find a place to put the text on the stock photos without detracting from the impact of the photo. Using the lettering on the bottom of the top photo was a possibility, but the lane marker in the middle of the road interfered with the lettering. Plus, I liked the balance of having the text block as large as the stock photo blocks, and with only the chapter number it felt a little empty, so this was one of the few I put the quote on the text block with the chapter number.

Chapter 4

  
[ ](https://imgbox.com/gYcGQEao)

The quote for this one is from the book Watership Down, my favorite book of all time (and also a fave of Ivorysilk’s). The quote is from a poem within the narrative, spoken by a character. The context of the poem is of the poet being nominally “free” but really trapped and in constant danger, longing to send his spirit soaring but knowing that the idea of freedom is illusory and impossible in his current situation. It’s a deeply sad and moving poem (even if it’s about adorable bunny rabbits) and if you have not read the book, you should. Now. :p Anyway, I have always loved the poem and it captured perfectly the feeling of John being technically free but really always in danger, knowing that freedom is illusory and transient. The nature images in the poem are gorgeous and I wanted to capture the feeling of longing for freedom and yet still being alone, so I chose the blowing grass, the willow catkins, and the hills from the poem, which are beautiful but solitary and empty. I balanced the composition by putting the two landscapes on the outside and the closeup on the inside. Again, I played with contrast and brightness to get the images to all match and filtered the left and center images to give that old yellowed photo look, which to me evokes that sense of longing and melancholy, sort of a nostalgia for something that can never truly be. The last photo I didn’t filter – it is a photo of hills in Iceland and already looked sort of lonely and ominous with the cloud front looming, and already had a bit of a yellowish tint that matched the others.

Chapter 5

  
[ ](https://imgbox.com/f43Qqnq3)

This is another one where I used filters, tone, and saturation to wash out the images leaving them cool toned, nearly grayscale but not quite. The text block uses a cool gray rather than the warmer gray of the text block of the chapter 4 text block. The hawk in particular took a lot of work because its feathers have really warm tones, being almost a golden brown in the original image. Also, the sun in the top image needed a lot of work to take out any of the golden tones of the sunlight. But I wanted the cool tones for the aesthetics of the chapter art, since this is the chapter where John is imprisoned and, as Ivorysilk put it, "going a little nuts" with it. I wanted to evoke a feeling of imprisonment and loss of hope, of everything looking less vivid and a little washed out, of the sun being harsh and killing rather than warm and life-giving. That top image in particular I really liked for the piece - being able to see the sky (freedom) but being blocked from reaching it. For me, it evoked classic prison movies like Cool Hand Luke and The Shawshank Redemption. Choosing which words to use from the quote was a challenge since the quote itself, while including the work "hawk", is not actually about flight but rather represents Hamlet pretending (or is he?) to be insane at times and sane at others, like "when the wind is southerly". In the end, I went with that part of the quote to tie in with the theme of wind as freedom from the previous chapter, since "a hawk from a handsaw" sounded to me a little bit humorous or flip, not matching the mood of the chapter. It gave me fits trying to put the words in without crossing the barbed wire and I'm still not totally happy with how it does that, but otherwise I would have had to make the words so small as to make it feel unbalanced, or else have the words split into two uneven lines, which is even worse aesthetically.

Chapter 6

  
[ ](https://imgbox.com/kviyI89U)

As I mentioned earlier, this one was one of the initial contenders to be the cover art, but I'm glad Ivorysilk chose the other one, because I think this one works better here as a chapter title card. It's stark and dark gray since John is still imprisoned but still has beauty (the dove and the boys themselves) as this is the chapter where they tentatively reach out for each other romantically. Since the quote is about eyes, I wanted the photos of the boys to be close up enough to make the eyes prominent, so I enlarged and cropped the photos accordingly. I played with contrast and brightness to get the two photos of the boys to match, but I'm still not super thrilled with how the one of John is much starker black/white while the one of Rodney is much more subtle grayscale, but there wasn't much more I could do short of using different photos, which I didn't want to do, so I just left it as is.

Chapter 7

  
[ ](https://imgbox.com/c1iJK2Xn)

This one is maybe my favorite of the compositions, and it was the last one I did, because it was the last quote chosen. I wanted to give the overall feeling of, not despair, quite, but desperation, maybe. The darkest moment before the dawn. When they have to force themselves to hold on and hope even against all odds - to "hold fast". Going with the bird/flight theme, the main image is of a bird, but one on a bare tree. The background is blurry but you can tell if you look that it's a huge flock of migrating birds - free - while the bird in the foreground is not joining them (injury? exhaustion? we don't know). I thought the image was both poignant and appropriate to the quote and the fic. The tree photo sort of represents a tiny bit of hope amid death and destruction - only a tiny bit of life remains but it's there, struggling to survive. and then the willow catkin stock photo I chose because it calls back to the Chapter 4 quote and image. In that one, he's still free and the willow catkin is in bloom, in the sun. In this one, it's in winter, tightly furled, but still alive (if barely) and ready to bloom when conditions allow. Again, I chose cool filters and washed out the warm tones.

Chapter 8

  
[ ](https://imgbox.com/L3cM6hbf)

This is where the story really reaches its turning point - it is the "fly by night" escape chapter (and yes, I'm a Rush fan, if you happen to know that reference :p). It's also a strong team-as-family chapter, so I wanted images of the core team. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find pics or screencaps with just the four of them! So many scenes, someone else barges into the shot (I'm looking at you, Carson) and I didn't want anyone else in (particularly not Carson, given his role in this story). I also wanted a representative image of just John and Rodney, since that is the core relationship of the story (and, imo, of the whole show), and of course the scene of them sitting on the pier during The Shrine is pretty much iconic. Then, I also liked the moment with the four of them on top of the stargate in the flood, which is also from The Shrine. (The screencap is blurry which drives me nuts but the entire shot with the four of them is the camera pulling back, in constant motion.) With those two shots being dark and moonlit, that set the color theme for the overall piece. So, of course, had to include an actual flight piece, so four birds by night across the moon seemed appropriate to the quote from the Book of Ruth (and pretty). The bottom two images were already dark and blue toned. The top right team image had quite a few blue tones but was much lighter: I darkened it as much as I could without making it look too dim.

Chapter 9

  
[ ](https://imgbox.com/SN2f6Bp3)

Originally the bird on the right was going to be part of a different composition for the end title card. But the background looked like a sunset, much more orangey, and Ivorysilk wanted it to look like a sunrise instead, so I played with it for a long time, trying to let it lighter and glowier, more sunrise-like. After I'd done that, it didn't quite seem right to me for the end title, but ended up working perfectly for the Chapter 9 art. I found another image to go with it, the four birds, representing the team together, and played with that to make it look lighter and glowier as well. So the two stock photos are totally different and unrelated photos but I think the color of the background ends up making them look pretty seamless, if not perfectly so. Although this is one of the simplest compositions, it probably took the longest, playing with the color of the background. It doesn't look like it would be tough to achieve that light sunrise look but at least for me, it was super tough!

Chapter 10

  
[ ](https://imgbox.com/48Hd9elY)

For the chapter that used this quote, I knew that I'd want to use the entire lyric because I love this song and didn't want to pick only a couple words. Because I wanted to use the whole lyric, I knew it would have to be very simple graphically, more of a background to the words than anything else. Staying with the sunrise theme from the prior chapter's art, I used a stock photo of a sunrise with wispy clouds. The three different images in the artwork are from the same photo, just different sections of the same sky. I think it works well like that because the colors go perfectly together, whereas different sky photos never seem to match perfectly (see, e.g. the Chapter 9 sky colors!) no matter how much you play with them. The light glowy colors of Chapter 9 and 10 go well with the hopeful ending and the romantic declarations, so I'm super glad Ivorysilk pushed me in that direction.

End title

  
[ ](https://imgbox.com/EspE5eYj)

This one was actually a graphic I made before I even signed up for the big bang and it had different words on it (it just said McShep at the bottom and had no words at the top), while I was just kind of dorking around with Canva. But I thought it made a nice end title card, a "snapshot" of the two of them together. The "The End...?" was me teasing Ivorysilk, because I want her to continue this fic, even though she has no current plans to do so. I know it's considered rude to beg for more but I am still hoping to prod her into continuing this 'verse, so I gave her a little poke. :D 


End file.
